InfoSmack Live from London! A Survivor's Tale...

Last week all of London was a-Twitter with news that the heralded InfoSmack podcast hosted by the creative and sometimes less conventional genius of Greg Knieriemen and Marc Farley was going to record "live" from the Golden Fleece. Taking advantage of scheduled travel from leading bloggers for HDSday, and two excellent events,#StorageBeers (created as a "social gathering of storage and infrastructure folks") and #vBeers (created as a "social get together of like-minded virtualization enthusiasts"), 50 or so lucky people got to watch and participate in, assuming you were brave enough to step up to the mike, the latest InfoSmack episode.

In an industry that can be very serious at times, just ask anyone who can’t find a file they thought resided on anLTO tape cartridge or backup that didn’t complete in time, InfoSmack tries to educate, share and introduce listeners to some of the most compelling minds and voices in the storage industry. Yes, there are many, and for those of us that truly “Heart” storage, enjoy listening to frequent guests such as Greg Schulz at StorageIO, Curtis Preston at BackupCentral, Mark Twomey at Storagezilla, Christina Weil, the "diva of disruptive technologies", and others, discuss the latest news, look at core issues around the storage industry and at times discuss "Ten Big Questions" like "which would you rather explain to a six year old. How a database works or how an internal combusion engine works?"

What made this particular podcast special, beyond the fact it was a group effort, is that so many in attendance were end users themselves. That’s the beauty of #StorageBeers and #vBeers, created by some of the most prolific bloggers in the industry, Martin Glassborrow aka Storagebod and Chris Evans aka The Storage Architect, and helped along by folks like Matthew Yeager aka What’s this got to do with Storage, Ian Foster aka Grumpy Storage and Rose Ross at O Marketing. While vBeers draws some of the leading minds in virtualization, Simon Seagrave aka TechHead and Simon Long aka The SLOG.

While it will be interesting to hear the final podcast, hats off to Greg and Marc for trying to add some levity to an already serious industry. As Marc explained before this particular podcast, while the conversations get interesting at times, they don’t produce the podcasts to embarrass or humiliate anyone. Which is one more reason why you should give it a listen and subscribe. And, recently the podcast scored a coup by gaining distribution from The Register, arguably home to one of the leading storage journalists in the industry, Chris Mellor.

Disclosure: To the best of my knowledge, I have never received anything from either Greg or Marc, that can be and is not limited to the following: A loaf of bread, a jug of wine or even a beer. With that said, I have had clients who have appeared on the podcast. And, I am happy to say they remain clients at present.

(Co-Hosts Marc Farley and Greg Knieriemen kick-off InfoSmack Live from London!)